whats in your truck tool box
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- Sweptline.ORG Member
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- State: AK
whats in your truck tool box
Driving home from work today in the 70 crewcab and the throttle cable broke off inside the plastic housing with no way to retrieve it. Trucks sitting there idling but I got no way to give it gas. So I get on the handy dandy cell phone and start making calls no one can come rescue me and I am looking at having to leave the truck on the side of the road(unacceptable). Dug around in my tool box and found my spool of wire I keep just in case something shakes loose and I need to tie it up. Threaded it through the hole in the firewall for the throttle cable wrapped one end on the carb linkage and the other on my pedal assembly and it worked good enough to get me back to the house. It's kinda pathetic but I keep wire, electrical tape, fuses, duct tape as well as a cheap set of tools in a tool box in my truck at all times, I view it like owning an old Harley,the truck is something special but until I upgrade everything it's not a matter of if it's gonna break down on me but on how often.
- MrMopar
- Sweptline.ORG Member
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
Eveybody who drives an old can (in any condition) should have a MacGyver kit, I have used gum wrappers and paper clips to fix things one being a bad ballast (which I now carry a spare). I used a pair of shoe strings to move wipers (Manualy) because of a broken clip.
Alan
Alan
- powerwagoncrazy
- Sweptline.ORG Member
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
Well, in the bed of my truck I pack a loaded 150lb roadbox with enough tools to rebuild the truck along side the road, 50' of 3/8" cable, 30' of chain, spare oil, p/s fluid, spare tire, small floor jack, an axe, a shovel, jumper cables, and a couple binders. Then in the cab I built wooden pull-out drawers under the back seat. The d/s has a box of assorted electrical connectors, 50' of new wire, trailer plug adapters, 2 pill bottles with misc. machine screws and small nuts, another small box of assorted small nuts and bolts, a dial caliper, a spare relay, etc. Passenger side drawer has a hatchet, ratchet straps, and 2 or 3 red long load flags. My spare brake fluid and can of WD40 live in the drivers' side cab corner, away from moisture. THEN, under the front seat I have a big first aid kit, a tape measure, a 6 ton bottle jack, orange marking paint, a roll of surveyors' string, a big Rand Mcnally Pacific Northwest road atlas, an ice scraper, an umbrella, a steering wheel puller set, and an old New Britain SAE tap and die set. Keep my maglights and the feeler gauges in the glovebox. Needless to say my whole truck constitutes as my toolbox lol!
- ozzie
- Sweptline.ORG Member
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
I just make one call to my towing service, and sit and watch the guy do all the work to get my truck home where I can work on it with all the tools, and beer I need. Ozzie.
- cudaboy
- Sweptline.ORG Pioneer
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
Waaaay back when I was a teenager, I had borrowed my Dad's delivery van, a 70's Dodge, when the rubber fuel line sprang a leak between the carb and the hard line. I was several miles from home, with a van load of friends. I found an old bic ink pen in the van and took it apart, cut the line in two and shoved the pen housing into each side of the line, and made it home. The pen was plastic, so by the time we made it home, it was as soft as a piece of spaghetti ! much further and it probably could have turned disastrous !! 

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- Sweptline.ORG Pioneer
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
U can have a thousand pounds of tools, but u better have some spare parts or those tools are useless.
For example, if u have electronic ignition and the ecm dies, yer screwed without a spare.
I like Ozzie's solution the best, that's why I pay $8 every 6 months for road service coverage.
For example, if u have electronic ignition and the ecm dies, yer screwed without a spare.
I like Ozzie's solution the best, that's why I pay $8 every 6 months for road service coverage.
- 63d100sixer
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
probably a bunch of black widows
its not going on the truck till I start work again, which is hopefully SOON 


- WD
- Sweptline.ORG Pioneer
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
For the Swepty a cell phone. For the 94 ranger, a full set of tools and this weekend I'll be adding spare every sensor and a spare computer from my wrecked 92 (same powertrain, both OBD1 set ups). Ranger keeps leaving me stranded, I'd prefer to carry a 1/2 stick of dynamite, but my wife knows I'd use it... Only reason I haven't torched it is the fact it was her favorite brother's last truck.
I absolutely LOATHE EFI and electronic ignition. I'm pulling my lowrider 72 Super Beetle out of the barn this weekend AND will try to swap engines in my Pilot House.
I absolutely LOATHE EFI and electronic ignition. I'm pulling my lowrider 72 Super Beetle out of the barn this weekend AND will try to swap engines in my Pilot House.
- powerwagoncrazy
- Sweptline.ORG Member
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
In all my electronic ignition rigs I've always carried an ecm and a ballast resistor- still in the tool box in the back of my diesel, actually! Roadside is great, but I've been through my truck enough to know its ins and outs and to have replaced most of the wear parts. Obviously (as with ANY vehicle) there are unknowns, but as a poor college student rolling the dice for that $8 a month helps. Plus the Cummins under the hood really lends to reliability! The other bonus of the barrage of tools is I have everything needed to strip down junk yard swepties!PwrWgnDrvr wrote:U can have a thousand pounds of tools, but u better have some spare parts or those tools are useless.
For example, if u have electronic ignition and the ecm dies, yer screwed without a spare.
I like Ozzie's solution the best, that's why I pay $8 every 6 months for road service coverage.
- DocsTruck
- Sweptline.ORG Pioneer
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Re: whats in your truck tool box
Don't have a tool box on the truck, but there is an unused set of points and condenser in their original Mopar boxes in the glove box.